Senate committee ends budget impasse

Spending plan expected to pass full Senate next week

RICHMOND – Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee reached a compromise deal Thursday on a two-year budget plan that both sides say could be approved by the full Senate as soon as Monday.

All six Democrats on the committee went along with their GOP colleagues to approve the spending plan, which includes money to help compete for public school support staff in Northern Virginia; provides additional funding for the state's preschool program; partially restores Medicaid eligibility for senior citizens in nursing homes; and offers support for the Proton Therapy Institute at Hampton University.

"We made this budget a lot better in terms of health and human services and public education. It was a cooperative effort with members of the Senate Finance Committee and Senate Finance Committee staff," said Senate Minority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax.

Saslaw had held all 20 Senate Democrats together to defeat two previous budget proposals, forcing the General Assembly into a special session. In the lead up to Thursday's deal, Senate Democrats had been accused of holding the spending plan hostage, because they were nursing "bruised political egos" over Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling using his tie-breaking vote to hand power to the GOP in the evenly-divided chamber.

While Bolling did break ties on a number of controversial issues in the 2012 regular session, by law he is not allowed to vote on budget issues, which require 21 votes to pass in the Senate.

In recent days Democrats quietly backed away from a demand of a power-sharing agreement in the Legislature's upper body – which Senate Democratic leaders now say they never insisted on – in order to allow the current budget deal to move forward.

The plan also pushes back the scheduled start date of tolls on the Downtown and Midtown Tunnels until Jan. 1, 2014, in order to give lawmakers and Gov. Bob McDonnell more time to find ways to mitigate the cost of those tolls on Hampton Roads residents.

Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth, whose district will be the most affected by the tolls, said the provision to move back the start date alone is enough to secure her floor vote for the spending plan.

"I'm satisfied to know I'm never going to get everything I want, but the biggest thing I want was in there," Lucas said. "So I'll make that concession."

Senate Majority Leader Thomas K. "Tommy" Norment, R-James City, had concerns over pushing back the tolling start date, because it may threaten the public-private partnership on the Downtown and Midtown Tunnel projects.

"If we were to walk away from that (public-private partnership), I think Virginia as a whole would be challenged to get additional (public-private partnerships)," Norment said. "Those private investors will go, 'Whoa, they entered into an agreement down there in Norfolk and Portsmouth and walked away from it. Do we want to take a chance as an investor of them doing this again?'"

Virginia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Tamara Rollison said pushing back the start date for tolls would not void the current public-private partnership.

"If (the measure) becomes law, we would follow it," Rollison said.

Norment was also skittish about plans to give the Proton Therapy Institute at Hampton University $3 million in fiscal year 2013, because Hampton University is a private college. He said he would feel more comfortable investing in research at public institutions such as Norfolk State University and Virginia Commonwealth University

While not part of Thursday's package, a floor amendment is in the works to cover the cost of the mandatory pre-abortion fetal ultrasounds for uninsured women and requiring insurance companies to cover the cost for insured women. Senate Democratic Caucus Chairman Donald McEachin of Henrico said the amendment will include $3.2 million over the biennium to pay for ultrasounds for women who don't have insurance.

"I would expect once the ultrasound amendment is adopted ... you'll see a significant vote for the budget," McEachin said.

McEachin said he believes there are enough votes in the chamber from both Democrats and Republicans to get the amendment added to the spending plan.

Finance Committee members hope the budget compromise can be voted on Monday, but said it may have to be pushed back to Tuesday or Wednesday to give all 40 members of the Senate a chance to get back to the Capitol.

The budget battle, howeveer, is far from over. Once the full Senate passes its spending plan next week, budget conferees from the House of Delegates and the Senate must hammer out an acceptable compromise to send to the governor.